Broadband News

Year in Review: 2010

This year has been an interesting one for broadband as so much has happened
in such a short space of time. The main advancements that can be seen
everywhere are to do with broadband speeds. BT moved out of a trial phase for
their fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) broadband and this is now being deployed
around the country allowing many thousands of people to connect up each week.
They expect to cover two-thirds of the country with this service which offers
speeds of up to 40meg by 2015, although 87% of Londoners should be able to
connect up by Spring 2011.

Wanting to keep the game alive, Virgin Media have also upped their
highest-speed package from 50 to 100meg with rollout having started earlier
this month in four areas, and full network deployment expected to be completed
in 2012. BT is trying to keep on top with their
full fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) service at 110meg to ensure that Virgin can't
claim top spot. More importantly, FTTH deployments are future-proof and will be
able to support much faster speeds without the need for new cabling.

These evolvements to higher speeds mean that more people than ever will
start to be able to get online with access to super-fast broadband. We may find
that next year people will need this speed as we are seeing changes in how
people use and access media. TV content providers have worked out that users
aren't always able to watch things when they are aired and that catch-up
services are extremely popular. A collaboration between the UK terrestrial TV
channels and the two largest broadband providers BT and TalkTalk, has come
together to merge the Internet with the television. Project Canvas, as this was
born,
now known as YouView, will launch in 2011 and allow people to connect a
set-top box to the Internet and their television to view things from BBC
iPlayer, ITV Player, 4oD, YouTube and much more. The 'open' standards box
should allow access to a whole host of different media and could bring a step
change in the way everyone watches television. TV manufacturers are also in on
the game; Sony have launched an Internet TV that incorporates Google TV giving
you direct access to the Internet and YouTube on your TV.

One of the most significant events of 2010 was the introduction of the much
debated Digital Economy Bill in to law. This brought to life government plans
to disconnect users who have been found to be taking part in illegal file
sharing. Unfortunately, the previous government rushed this through the
parliamentary process in the 'wash up' prior to leaving office (with full
support of the main opposition) and the incoming government, despite plans to
review it, have not repealed or amended the law. Ofcom are in the process of
implementing the details which will require all ISPs with
more than 400,000 customers (excluding mobile broadband) to process and
notify customers of copyright infringements when received. BT and TalkTalk are
however in the process of appealing this law through the high courts, so the
process isn't as yet set in stone.

Other government plans have seen the 2Meg broadband USC (universal service
commitment) pushed back to 2015, with the previous government promising to
deliver this by 2012. There will be investment into broadband through funding
from the under-spend of the Digital Switchover process and also funds to be
made available from the BBC license fee over the next few years. This will help
the 'final third' of the country (the areas not expected to be reached by
private industry) gain access to faster broadband. Under these government plans
each community should gain access to what they call a 'Digital Hub', which is
likely to be a fibre connection. From this, connections can be made by, in
theory, any technology to allow people to get online.

We expect 2011 to bring many interesting developments on broadband, but
perhaps the biggest thing missing is a roll-out of Long Term Evolution
(LTE), the next generation of mobile broadband technology. Other countries are
already in the process of getting this going and it can offer speeds of up to
100meg over a mobile phone connection. Due to delays in getting frequency
auctions running we won't be seeing live networks until perhaps 2014, although
limied trials have already started in some areas.

At thinkbroadband we have seen various developments throughout the year and
we are still working on many more. We have launched our Broadband Quality Monitor which allows
people to monitor their connection 24x7 and identify problems from high latency
or packet loss which might indicate the line is disconnecting. We've also
launched a broadband mapping tool
which aims to identify the different types of broadband that are available in
an area, show broadband speeds that people can achieve and also estimated
speeds based on distance from your local telephone exchange. We will be adding
more data to this over the next few weeks.

For those who have an android based mobile phone, we have a mobile
speedtest app which can test the speed of your mobile broadband connection,
and also that of your Wi-Fi through your phone. We also have a new flash speedtest
available which we are currently testing and hope to roll out shortly with more
features. We are of course working on new things which we are excited about and
hope to show some of it off in the next month or two.

As ever, we would like to thank all our staff, moderators and users for
their hard work over the last year - without them, we wouldn't be the website
we are.

Comments

And the award for most overused and inappropriate use of the comma goes to....

kamelion

over 7 years ago

@kamelion: probably me, as I edited it to remove lots of short sentences. My excuse is is that it's my third language ;)

seb

over 7 years ago

It's ok the overuse of the . in the second and third paragraphs kind of evened it out :p

kamelion

over 7 years ago

@kamelion: correction; Actually I think most of those were in John's original.. but I didn't spot it until you mentioned it.. after which it became rather obvious.. Removed a few ;)

seb

over 7 years ago

I blame alcohol

kamelion

over 7 years ago

Just one note - the 87% of London on FTTC by Spring appears to be optimistic given that tons of London has been pushed back 3 months, December -> March, March -> July.

Dixinormous

over 7 years ago

Never heard of Virgn before.

krazykizza

over 7 years ago

Virgn is fixed!

john

over 7 years ago

I'm just left with the impression we are headed back to where we "ought" to have started if there had been sensible infrastructure telecomms planning i.e. the updating of the BT network supplemented by the two "original" mobile networks. A generation (mine) of workers have been engaged on nothing but a child's playtime namely regulation and artificial competition which screws the consumer/taxpayer for no difference to the eventual outcome and hampers technical progress. Our traditional English disease of process over progress.

mervl

over 7 years ago

All this is very impressive. Er .... when may we expect it in the Western Isles?